Federal prosecutors are recommending probation and six months of home confinement for a college student who made threats of violence against Wayne State University.

Ali Saad of Dearborn was online when he threatened to shoot up the campus with a machine gun a year ago. Saad's threats were false but no one knew it at the time. Wayne State police and FBI rushed to investigate.

Saad will be sentenced Friday in federal court. The government acknowledges that a sentence without prison would be a significant break for the 20-year-old, especially since investigators found images of sexual exploitation of children on Saad's computer.

In a court filing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Mulcahy says the good outweighs the bad. Saad now is a student at the University of Michigan in Dearborn.